John Kennedy doesn’t hear the jibes any longer when he ventures south of the border on club business.

The Celtic first-team coach used to bristle as counterparts in England would discuss some of the Parkhead club’s talented players and say: “They are good - but it’s only Scotland. I’m not sure they could do it in England.”

Well, the likes of Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster and Joe Ledley haven’t done too badly since heading to the English Premier League.

And Virgil van Dijk, who arrived on these shores as a virtual unknown, has now developed into what Kennedy believes is the best central defender playing in England – and one who can go on to play for Barcelona.

Celtic have been praised for the role in giving these players a chance to flourish but it is only in recent months, thanks to back-to-back draws in the Champions League against Manchester City, that the Scottish champions have been given the respect they deserve.

Kennedy said: “From speaking to people in England, I think the attitude is changing, especially in the last 6-12 months.

Celtic coach John Kennedy takes in training this week

“Southampton have taken a few off us and other players have moved to teams and, all of a sudden, the big boys think, ‘We want a piece of this’.

“Now they are seeing that we do produce good players, we’re getting good players in and we’re making them better.

“I think you’ll see, in the near future, that some of the big ones will come and pluck the very best that we’ve got because we do have high-calibre players.

“Moussa Dembele’s getting all the headlines just now, but on top of that, we have a lot of players in the squad who could go and play Premier League football quite easily.

“Look at van Dijk - he’s a top player. Even when I worked with him here, I don’t think people appreciated what he was all about when he was playing in Scotland.

“A lot of English media and teams looked at him thought, ‘We’re unsure’, but he’s the very top.

“I think he’s the best centre-back in England. When I watch English football, I think he’s the best.

“Virgil is the type of player, when you look at his game and the stature of him, he could play for any team he wants to. Even Barcelona.

van Dijk is wanted by several clubs in England (Image: Stuart MacFarlane)

“That’s the level I see him at.

“It would be stupid of some of the big teams in England not to make a move for him.

“The ones who do have questions over Celtic and Scottish football, well we answered a lot of those questions in the Man City games. We put a lot of people back in their place by showing we can compete at that level.

“We now have a squad that is very confident that they can compete at that level. When we first went into it, there was maybe a little bit of caution in the players’ minds but when we got out there and took the reins off and let themselves go, they showed they can compete.

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“That’s great for us going forward, especially for next year’s campaign, hopefully.”

Celtic have rampaged through the domestic campaign, winning the Betfred Cup and dropping only two points in the league all season. Dundee arrive in Glasgow’s East End tomorrow and Kennedy expects them to be as resilient as Hamilton were on Tuesday night, when they lost to a single Leigh Griffiths strike.

The coach believes Rodgers’s team showed a different side to their game in midweek by battling for a result when they weren’t firing on all cylinders.

Celtic showed a different side to their game against Hamilton, Kennedy reckons

He added: “It’s important to show that side to us because there will be games where we won’t be as fluid as we’d like. Sometimes you have to be patient, we won’t score so many goals and wait on that opportunity, score, and then see it out. That’s what we had to do.

“To be fair to Hamilton they were very well organised. They are as tough an opponent as we’ve come across. They limited our chances, we got the one, and the important factor then was to control the game and see it out.”

And he insisted that protecting their unbeaten record is not a burden on the squad.

He said: “The unbeaten record doesn’t mean anything to us in terms of where we want to go.

“The most important factor is we are winning games and winning with style. “We have a way of playing, a way of working, and we need to concentrate on that.

“The minute you take your eye off the ball and worry about making history, unbeaten records and everything else, you can forget what is important which is doing your job for the team. If everyone does that it will take us a long way.”

Kennedy is delighted to see Sinclair on the verge of a return (Image: SNS)

The league leaders have stretched 11 points clear with two games in hand and have done so recently without Scott Sinclair and Kieran Tierney wreaking havoc on the left, as they did earlier in the season.

Sinclair is now back in training and may feature on the bench against Dundee tomorrow.

Kennedy said: “He trained today and he’ll be in and around the squad. It’s doubtful he’ll start but he had his first training session today. He looked sharp. In terms of the squad, we are looking good.

“There are a lot of boys who are itching to get a game, but it’s only Tierney and James Forrest who are our injuries at the moment. We have a big squad to choose from but we have a few big games coming up, so there will be times when we’ll make one or two changes.”